Above the Law, Law School Accreditation: What Is To Be Done?:

I was eager to attend a panel at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention on the subject of law school accreditation. The following panelists addressed a standing-room-only crowd at the Mayflower Hotel, where the conference was held:

• Justice David R. Stras, Minnesota Supreme Court (moderator);
• Professor Thomas D. Morgan, Oppenheim Professor of Antitrust and Trade Regulation Law, George Washington University Law School;
• Mr. Clark Neily, Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
• Prof. Ann Shalleck, Director of the Women and the Law Program, Carrington Shields Scholar, American University Washington College of Law
• Dean David N. Yellen, Dean and Professor, Loyola University Chicago School of Law

The most provocative question was posed at the very end of the session, by a law student from Tulane Law School. Citing depressing data about the high debt loads and unemployment rates among law school graduates, he asked whether the ABA should exercise more rigor in accrediting schools. In essence, fewer law schools would produce fewer graduates, resulting in enhanced job opportunities for the smaller pool of lawyers.

Dean Yellen rejected that view: “As long as there’s adequate disclosure, who is the ABA to tell a law school to close itself down or to shrink its class?”

Assuming the existence of adequate disclosure is, of course, a big assumption, especially in light of the recent misreporting scandals. And it’s an assumption that will be tested in court, thanks to the proliferation of lawsuits against law schools, alleging that these schools issued false or misleading employment statistics.

In fairness to law schools, however, the case against them grows weaker and weaker with each passing day. With every new lawsuit filed against a school, every new newspaper article or blog post about the dangers of going to law school, and every new call by a senator for an investigation into law school employment reporting, it becomes that much harder for a law student entering the system today to claim that she was duped about the value proposition of legal education.

In November 2011, there is ample information out there, accessible to anyone with access to Google, showing that going to law school can be hazardous to your financial health. If you carefully consider this information and decide to matriculate anyway, that’s fine; there is a case to be made in favor of going to law school (for some people).

But if you ignore the warning signs, only to find yourself jobless and $100,000 in debt three years later, maybe you shouldn’t blame your law school for taking your money, or the ABA for accrediting your school. Maybe you should blame yourself.